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Tweetbot for Mac Goes Live on Mac App Store for $20

Personally not paying $20 for a twitter app, nor will I be revoking my tokens. When the money grabbing stops and the price becomes reasonable, I'll buy it, but until then, the token stays on the several accounts I used during the betas.
 
rmwebs said:
Whilst its a great app, the business logic is massively flawed.

Lets say for arguments sake that they still have the 100,000 'tokens' that they had a while ago.

That works out at a maximum income (taking Apple's 30% cut into account) of $1.4 million.

Obviously they are a fairly small company, however when that runs out (and remember, I didn't take into account any expenses, so the actual profit will be significantly lower) they are promising to keep developing the software, despite having no income.

Whilst some of their other products may subsidise the ongoing development, when it comes to major updates, they have zero incentive once they know that they cant make a penny off of it, even if they release 'v2' and charge all over again, as they wont be issued more tokens for it.
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Couldn't agree more and it's exactly what I thought when I saw the price. I was already disappointed in them for releasing separate iPhone and iPad apps. Greed is good, I guess. Tempted to pirate the app out of spite.
 
superfula said:
Couldn't agree more and it's exactly what I thought when I saw the price. I was already disappointed in them for releasing separate iPhone and iPad apps. Greed is good, I guess. Tempted to pirate the app out of spite.
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The issue isnt greed. The issue is that you cant promise to support a product you arent making any money on.
 
rmwebs said:
The issue isnt greed. The issue is that you cant promise to support a product you arent making any money on.
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so once their 100,000 tokens are used up, support for the app will cease?
once they are used up they won't be making any more money from it.
 
Senseotech said:
Personally not paying $20 for a twitter app, nor will I be revoking my tokens. When the money grabbing stops and the price becomes reasonable, I'll buy it, but until then, the token stays on the several accounts I used during the betas.
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It's kids like you that ruin the playground for everyone.

superfula said:
Couldn't agree more and it's exactly what I thought when I saw the price. I was already disappointed in them for releasing separate iPhone and iPad apps. Greed is good, I guess. Tempted to pirate the app out of spite.
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Greed? 😕
 
superfula said:
Couldn't agree more and it's exactly what I thought when I saw the price. I was already disappointed in them for releasing separate iPhone and iPad apps. Greed is good, I guess.
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You hear this sentiment a lot these days, and not one person who makes it is willing to work for free. Tapbots makes all of their UIs, sounds, etc. by hand, so creating an iPad version required work from their developers. Work that the developers had to be paid for. But it's too much to ask iOS users to shell out a few dollars for an app so that the developers can actually make a living.

It's hilarious that people will spend several hundred dollars for an iOS device, or well over a thousand for a Mac, and then bitch about the relatively miniscule cost of quality software.
 
BaldiMac said:
It's kids like you that ruin the playground for everyone.



Greed? 😕
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Ruin the playground by voting with my dollar and saying I won't roll over and pay $20 for an app with a single function and uncertain future? Or ruin the playground by saying that I'm keeping the tokens I have so that should I choose to pay for this app (regardless what I pay or when) I actually can?
 
Senseotech said:
Ruin the playground by voting with my dollar and saying I won't roll over and pay $20 for an app with a single function and uncertain future? Or ruin the playground by saying that I'm keeping the tokens I have so that should I choose to pay for this app (regardless what I pay or when) I actually can?
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The second one.
 
I still don't get the flawed logic of MAS apps pricing... While iPhone apps cost mostly between 1 and 10 dollars, Mac variant of the same app costs 5-10 times more.

No way I'd pay 20 bucks for a client for a service which was meant to be free. So no, thanks - Safari will do for me.
 
From listening to the guys in the jailbreak community, its pretty sad these days. Apps that are $.99 still get pirated. People pretty much refuse to pay for an app thats more than $2.99. Things have really changed. And part of it is the independent app developers fault. Too often people got burned buying something for $20 and found out that it was either a terrible app, buggy or support ended soon after.
What I don't understand from my age demographic..30-40 years old. People had no problem buying music for $15-18 and only listening to it once. Now an app that you will probably use every day costs $20 and you are going to balk? Concert tickets these days cost $60,80,100 or more. You are getting 2 hours of entertainment for that.
These guys worked tirelessly on this app for a year. I think $20 is a lot. I don't do it often, but I'm buying this one. Why? Because I use the service every day. I might as well ride in style.
 
I'm sure if they were able to sell an unlimited amount the price would be alot lower. I can understand jacking up the price being that their ability to make money is hampered by this twitter token limit. Can't say that I blame them at all.
 
NAG said:
It is like you didn't read the blog post at all.
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i did, but there is clearly a finite amount of money they can make from this app, which is unlike any other app in the store.

once the tokens are used up, the money stops rolling in. with no money there isn't anything to fund future development, there isn't any incentive to develop further as there is no money in it.

of course they could make a v2 app that is a "new" app (like what Tweetie did), and they'd have another 100,000 tokens to play with, but who'd be silly enough to spend another $20 on that.
 
Colpeas said:
I still don't get the flawed logic of MAS apps pricing... While iPhone apps cost mostly between 1 and 10 dollars, Mac variant of the same app costs 5-10 times more.
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More complicated development. More features. Fewer potential customers. What's flawed about the logic?
 
With twitter doing the whole token limit thing, it makes me inclined to just avoid twitter itself and seek out alternatives. Why waste time on something with a strategy that will eventually put themselves out of business?
 
chenks said:
i did, but there is clearly a finite amount of money they can make from this app, which is unlike any other app in the store.

once the tokens are used up, the money stops rolling in. with no money there isn't anything to fund future development, there isn't any incentive to develop further as there is no money in it.

of course they could make a v2 app that is a "new" app (like what Tweetie did), and they'd have another 100,000 tokens to play with, but who'd be silly enough to spend another $20 on that.
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Since apparently you are not comprehending the blog post here is a relevant quote.

Because of Twitter’s recent enforcement of token limits, we only have a limited number of tokens available for Tweetbot for Mac. These tokens dictate how many users Tweetbot for Mac can have. The app’s limit is separate from, but much smaller than, the limit for Tweetbot for iOS. Once we use up the tokens granted to us by Twitter, we will no longer be able to sell the app to new users. Tapbots will continue to support Tweetbot for Mac for existing customers at that time.
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Here is the important sentence.

Tapbots will continue to support Tweetbot for Mac for existing customers at that time.
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milo said:
With twitter doing the whole token limit thing, it makes me inclined to just avoid twitter itself and seek out alternatives. Why waste time on something with a strategy that will eventually put themselves out of business?
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App.net is nice (and they have Netbot for iOS out). Even if they charged a dollar a year they'd still run into the issue it not having everything. Some things are, unfortunately, only on Twitter. Tent is another alternative but is very immature at the moment.
 
nsfw said:
From listening to the guys in the jailbreak community, its pretty sad these days. Apps that are $.99 still get pirated. People pretty much refuse to pay for an app thats more than $2.99. Things have really changed. And part of it is the independent app developers fault. Too often people got burned buying something for $20 and found out that it was either a terrible app, buggy or support ended soon after.
What I don't understand from my age demographic..30-40 years old. People had no problem buying music for $15-18 and only listening to it once. Now an app that you will probably use every day costs $20 and you are going to balk? Concert tickets these days cost $60,80,100 or more. You are getting 2 hours of entertainment for that.
These guys worked tirelessly on this app for a year. I think $20 is a lot. I don't do it often, but I'm buying this one. Why? Because I use the service every day. I might as well ride in style.
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The point is that on the web it is free of charge. And Safari will probably serve you as well as a separate application. One more open tab won't hurt.

Furthermore, iPhone / iPad version i €2.39. Reason why they charge 20 bucks for Mac version is a mystery to me...
 
BaldiMac said:
More complicated development. More features. Fewer potential customers. What's flawed about the logic?
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Not 5-10x more complicated development. Not at all.

Fewer potential customers? Well, with those prices you bet there'll be fewer customers!
 
Saladinos said:
Not 5-10x more complicated development. Not at all.
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Luckily, there is no requirement for a 1:1 ratio between development costs and pricing. That's why I listed multiple factors.

Fewer potential customers? Well, with those prices you bet there'll be fewer customers!
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And somehow you don't get that that's the point.
 
Tweetbot is my client of choice on iPad and iPhone. Its £13.99 on the UK App Store for the desktop version. I installed Tweetdeck ages ago for free and TBH, see no reason to stop using it.
 
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